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MinnEcon Blog
Paul Tosto

A quick look at this morning’s MN jobless data

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Here's the basic info on the Minnesota jobless data for October: released this morning by the state Department of Employment and Economic Development.

Take a look at this morning's press release and post below or contact me directly if you see data that encourages or worries you.

UPDATE: Here's the MPR News story on the numbers

Here's my quick take:

Positives:

-- October rate: 7.6 percent, up from seasonally adjusted 7.4 percent in September.

-- Minnesota employers added 2,200 jobs in October

-- The state jobless rate is a lot better than the 10.2 percent national unemployment rate.

-- Professional and business services gained the most jobs during the month, followed by education and health services, leisure and hospitality government. Temporary help accounted for more than half the gains in professional and business services. State officials say temp help growth is a leading indicator of recovery.

Things that should worry us:

-- Logging and mining were flat for the month.

-- Manufacturing still isn't looking great. Year-to-year job losses rose again. Manufacturing, a crucial piece of Minnesota's economy, lost 4,900 jobs in October, putting its 12 month losses above 40,000 (41,300)

UPDATE: The rate increase is in line with what the folks who produce Creighton University's Minnesota economic index expected:

Ernie Goss, the economist who oversee the university's Midwest states index project had expected the rate to rise as "discouraged workers" came back into the labor force to search again for jobs. A couple weeks ago, he wrote:

Even though Minnesota's unemployment rate has recently declined, based on our surveys over the past several months, I expect the state's jobless rate to increase by another 0.6 percent by the end of the year.